ITALIAN VILLAS 
The Isola Madre, the largest of the Borromean group, 
was the first to be built on and planted. The plain 
Renaissance palace still looks down on a series of walled 
gardens and a grove of cypress, laurel and pine ; but 
the greater part of the island has been turned into an 
English park of no special interest save to the horticul- 
turist, who may study here the immense variety of exotic 
plants which flourish in the mild climate of the lakes. 
The Isola Bella, that pyramid of flower-laden terraces 
rising opposite Stresa, in a lovely bend of the lake, 
began to take its present shape about 1632, when Count 
Carlo III built a casino di delizie on the rocky pinnacle. 
His son, Count Vitaliano IV, continued and completed 
the work. He levelled the pointed rocks, filled their 
interstices with countless loads of soil from the mainland, 
and summoned Carlo Fontana and a group of Milanese 
architects to raise the palace and garden-pavilions above 
terraces created by Castelli and Crivelli, while the water- 
works were entrusted to Mora of Rome, the statuary 
and other ornamental sculpture to Vismara. The work 
was completed in 1671, and the island, which had been 
created a baronial fief, was renamed Isola Isabella, after 
the count’s mother — a name which euphony, and the 
general admiration the place excited, soon combined to 
contract to Isola Bella. 
The island is built up in ten terraces, narrowing suc- 
cessively toward the top, the lowest resting on great 
vaulted arcades which project into the lake and are used 
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